Photo Folly
by SuperGroverAway
Summary: In a desperate attempt to keep his crush from seeing an embarrassing picture, Dipper finds himself making one bad decision after another.


"...Letter from home...letter from home...no need to feel bad and alone when you got a letter from ho-oome..."

The preteen brunette sang happily as she opened up the personally addressed envelope. Mabel excitedly bounced on her heels while she read the message out loud. "'Found a bunch of our old photo albums while cleaning out the attic. Thought you might like a picture or two for your scrap book. Love, Mom.' Aww..."

"Wait, what about Mom?" Her brother pried curiously as he entered the shop, no doubt attracted by his sister's cheery commotion.

"It's just a little note from home." Mabel answered as she looked at the attach photo. "She says she sent something that I might-"

She didn't get any further before one glance caused her to abruptly erupt with gleeful laughter. As she giggle aloud, her twin's interest was piqued further.

"What? What is it?" Dipper asked a little impatiently. He grimaced as he tried to get a peek. "What did she send?"

"Something _adorable_, that's what she sent!" Mabel giggled as she finally showed him. Dipper's eyes bulged in genuine dismay as he gazed upon the picture of a pair of familiar-looking two-year olds sitting in the bathtub together.

"_Gah_! Naked tub photos!" He yelped, acting quite the stark contrast to his unashamedly gushing sister.

"Awww, just look how _cute_ we are." She cooed sweetly. "We're all tiny and having tubbie-time! There's me, and there's you standing up-"

She received a minor start when her brother tore the photo out of her hands and snapped nervously, "Mabel, _please_ don't flash that around!"

Mabel gawked silently at her inexplicably anxious sibling. However, her confusion proved to be incredibly short-lived as she quickly caught on. Soon, she was wearing an enormous smug grin that stretched from ear to ear.

"Ooooh, what's wrong, brother?" She teased, poking him hard in the stomach. "Don't like naked baby pictures? Why's _that_?"

"Nothing..." His scarlet blushed quickly sold him out on his obvious lie.

"Is it because you don't want your _girlfriend_ to see it?" Mabel tittered as she gave him another couple prods. "Beep, bop, boop! Loverboy is all anxious now, huh?!"

"No, I just...I don't want anyone else to see it, okay?" Her flustered twin sputtered, but of course his frantic denials were entirely in vain. Mabel had already started to prance merrily around him as she heaped on the playful teasing.

"Dipper is afraid of Wendy seeing his bare little butt!" She sang gleefully before she began to feint in and out, making grabs for the picture. Dipper clumsily dodged about as he desperately tried to avoid her reach.

"Mabel, stop!" He whined. "Cut it out!"

"A picture of little Dippy's naked baby fanny!" She laughed as she pressed on. "No sweet smooches from Wendy if she sees _that_, huh? Haha!"

"I said cut it out! Mabel, quit it! _Quit_ it!" Dipper yelped as he tried to push her away, which she avoided with a nimble skip. He was so busy trying to keep his taunting twin at bay that he failed to notice a certain redhead approaching from outside until it was far too late. A ring of the bell and the clomp of her signature lumberjack boots announced her casual arrival.

"'Sup, guys." Wendy greeted warmly as she sauntered in, utterly unaware to the ridiculous struggle that had been going on.

Unsuccessfully stifling another fit of laughter, Mabel called off her playful assault on her brother and answered happily, "Hiya, Wendy!"

Dipper's heart skipped a beat. There his crush stood mere feet away, as he held in his hands a potential goldmine of ungodly embarrassment. Panic struck him with the force of a tsunami, washing away every ounce of common sense he had. As his mind temporarily shut down, the boy took one look at the photo before he resorted to what seemed like the only good option he had.

This entire mental meltdown happened all in the span of just moments, and Wendy didn't seem to notice it in the slightest as she continued chatting with Mabel. "What's with _you_? What's so funny?"

"Oh...nothing much..." The giddy preteen answered coyly as she flashed an incredibly obvious wink to her twin. Wendy smiled as she folded her arms.

"Guess it doesn't matter all that much. With you two I always have a back-up. Dipper, what's so funny?"

The boy however was dead silent, and needless to say, the fact that he was just quietly standing there frozen like a baby deer in headlights did not go unnoticed in the slightest. Wendy promptly dropped her smiled and frowned confusedly. "Uh...Dip?"

"Dipper?" Mabel chimed in as she turned back around. As they both waited expectantly, Dipper's chest heaved up and down as he struggled to answer.

"Mmpble mfft-pbbht." He mumbled, barely moving his lips. His sister's eyes widened in surprise once she swiftly realized where he was hiding the photo. As he kept his mouth zipped tightly, he shot her a look of misery; clearly he was fast regretting this unarguably stupid decision. While the siblings communicated silently, Wendy's bewilderment was only growing worse by the moment.

"Dude, you okay?" She said worriedly as she crouched down in from. "Is there something in your mo"

The moment the jig was up, the poor adolescent was beset by a fresh surge of terror. She couldn't know. Almost instinctively he swallowed as hard as he could. This quickly proved to be a horrifically bad idea; the photo became lodged fast in his throat. Immediately he began to gasp violently as his air supply was abruptly blocked off.

"_Whoa_!" Wendy reeled back in horrified surprise. "What the...?!"

"_Choking_!" Mabel squeaked shrilly in alarm. As her brother sputtered, she darted to his side and started n to beat her hand furiously against his back.

"Cough it out! Cough it out!" The teenager yelped as she hovered anxiously.

At first he was going to do as bid until the cold hard realization struck him with the force of a lightening bolt. If he did end up forcing it up, he would have more than just a soggy, embarrassing photo; he definitely was also going to have some serious explaining to do to his crush. The thought of this potential humiliating fate quickly proved to be too terrifying to ignore. Before he knew it, he found himself resisting his very own survival instincts as he started to fight like mad to keep the photo down.

Realizing that she wasn't getting anywhere, Mabel began to pound harder. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize why her brother was being such a stubborn nitwit. "No! Dipper, _no_! Spit it out, now! _Now_! Not later, not tomorrow, _now_!"

Even though he could practically feel his face turn blue, Dipper actually shook his head as his hormones drove him onwards to fight back against her efforts. The moment he felt the baby picture begin to come loose, he swallowed again out of the desperate hope that it would go down this time, and all would be well. Alas, he had no such luck, and the choking continued.

"It's not working! See?" Wendy cried, misreading his gestures. Before Mabel could get in a word, the teen dashed around and took control of the situation. Every muscle that wasn't spasming violently tensed up in alarm when Dipper saw her hands reach around from behind, clasp tightly tightly, and then press hard into his abdomen.

The mess of a photo barely started to get worked free when he frantically swallowed again, and once more it became wedged hard. Wendy gritted her teeth and tried again determinedly, and once more Dipper responded in kind. It may have only been a few seconds, but for them it felt like a horrid eternity of a grim tug-of-war, with the teenage doing her best to administer the life-saving maneuver, and her patient trying his all to make sure each push was unsuccessful by gulping hard and praying like mad that this would be the time that he successfully swallowed it whole.

Mabel soon had enough of this nonsense; this called for desperate measure, and fast. With a wild yell, she lowered her head and charged. "_YAAAA_!"

She butted his gut with the force of a tiny battering ram, and it was too much for him to take. He could feel the photo fire up through his throat and fly out of his mouth like a tiny missile. As the air began to gush back into his lungs, Dipper felt a surge of despair follow in its wake. The despondent boy could do little else but gasp hard and wait for the death by humiliation that now seemed imminent.

He had to admit though, at least the follow-up to it was nice. Moving tenderly, a very relieved Wendy gently sat him down and propped him against the counter. As the proper color returned to his face, she fretted worriedly.

"You okay?" she asked anxiously as she pat his back.

"For...f-for now." He answered honestly with a wheeze and a feeble smile. She grinned weakly and gave him a gentle knock on the shoulder.

"Glad to hear. So what just what was that, anyway?" The curious teen quickly cut to the chase. He could see the fateful question coming from a mile away, but that didn't make this moment any easier to bear. But to be fair the last few minutes he had done nothing but make stupid decision after decision, and now it was time to pay the piper.

As he wracked his mind for a way to make this explanation the least embarrassing as possible, he resignedly began, "I-"

"You _definitely_ get my dollar, that's for sure." Mabel interrupted as she knelt beside them.

Dipper was just as legitimately puzzled by this remark as Wendy, who asked, "Wait, _what_?"

"A dollar. For the contest!" Mabel answered as she elbowed her baffled twin gently in the side. It was a good several seconds before he could comprehend the fact that his sister not only was lying, but putting actual and serious effort into it. She didn't have nearly as many obvious tells, save an incessant fidgeting with a sweater sleeve as she put on a smile and fibbed as best as her limited abilities allowed.

"Contest?" Their older friend repeated curiously. "Wait, so you mean like a dare?"

"Uh-huh!" The little preteen nodded furiously. "It was a...a...a gum contest! Yeah, and whoever could stuff the most sticks of gum in their mouth got a dollar."

She then pointed to her twin and announced, "So, I'm pretty sure _he_ wins."

Wendy stared blankly as she processed this explanation. Just as the twins passed one another a nervous glance, she suddenly cracked up into a fit of laughter, and thus signaling she had bought the story. "Well after all _that_, he better! I've done some dumb dares before, but you doofuses almost scared me half to death!"

Dipper shrugged and chuckled weakly as he joined in on the lie. "What can I say? She won the toothbrush race this morning. I had to even the score."

The teenager chuckled and him a gentle shove. "Well congratulations. For the first time in my life I'm hoping that the rest of my shift is completely boring. Nice job, I think you two broke me."

"Just don't get bored to death. I don't think that the Heimlich maneuver can help with that." Dipper managed to joke. Any tension left in the room vanished in a flash as the three descended into a fit of group laughter.

After chuckling like a fool with the others, Wendy took a deep breath and climbed back to her feet. "I'll go get you a drink of water. Just try not to shove anything more into your throats, okay guys?"

"No promises." The twins teased together in near-unison. Wendy chortled and made a face at the siblings before trotting off towards the kitchen.

Once she was gone, the pair let loose with a chorus of heavy sighs. It was frankly hard to say who was more relieved; the boy who just had a horrible choking incident, or the girl that was forced to watch her brother undergo a horrible choking incident. After double checking to make sure Wendy was out of sight, Mabel reached into her pocket and pulled out a sad crumble soggy mess. Recognizing the remains of what was once their baby photo, Dipper lit up fast with embarrassment, and started to mumble apologetically, "I...I'm sorry about...uh, y'know..."

Mabel shrugged, then threw it into the garbage can with a well-aimed shot. As she wiped her hands on her sweater, she admitted softly, "I probably should have remembered that your brain always breaks when she's around."

Feeling a little guilty herself, she turned and asked hopefully, "Still cool?"

Dipper grinned thankfully at her. With a bit of effort, he scooted closely and draped an arm around her shoulders. As she sighed gratefully, he murmured, "So...did anyone tell you yet today that you're a good sister?"

Beaming gratefully right back, she responded in kind. Together the sat in a shameless one-armed hug sibling hug as the waited for Wendy to return. While they leaned up against the counter though, Mabel tittered; couldn't help but get in one more mischievous rib.

"Now, has anyone ever told _you_ about pockets? I'm not sure if you know, but they're these nifty things that _all_ the rage for hiding stuff-"

Moving quickly, he grabbed the neck of her sweater and started to tug hard. As she wiggled about and filled the rooms with squealing laughter, Dipper chuckled while they became locked in fierce playful contact. "And _now_ I think I want to take it all back already..."

**The End**


End file.
